CONCERNED BY CRITICAL SHORTAGE OF
ENGINEERS, LEADING CEO'S AND EDUCATORS TO GATHER FOR ENGINEERING
EDUCATION SUMMIT

Presentations By Astronaut Bonnie
Dunbar And Others Will Forefront The Need For More Women In The
Engineering Pipeline

In the United States, some 350,000
engineering and computer science positions are currently unfilled.
Of the engineers practicing today, only 9 percent are women.

"Taken together, these statistics
point to a national crisis," says Domenico Grasso.

"The input and expertise of engineers
is critical to nearly every aspect of our lives today, and yet
we are not graduating the numbers of well-educated engineers
that we need to properly position society for what the future
holds," he adds.

Grasso, the chair of Smith College's
new Picker Program in Engineering and Technology, is a driving
force behind "Designing the Future," an intensive summit
on engineering education intended to formulate potential solutions
to this workforce shortage.

Over the course of two days -- Friday,
March 30, and Saturday, March 31 -- some 150 engineering executives,
corporate representatives, deans, faculty members and association
representatives, as well as foundation directors and advocates
for women in science, will gather at Smith to begin a dialogue
on educational strategies for diversifying the engineering and
technology workforce.

"Designing the Future" will
begin at 2 p.m. on Friday, March 30, with an introduction by
Smith President Ruth Simmons, followed by an exploratory discussion
of the engineering crisis led by William Wulf, president of the
National Academy of Engineering. Panel members will be Elaine
Seymour, director of ethnography and evaluation research at the
University of Colorado at Boulder; Tom Engibous, CEO of Texas
Instruments; John Slaughter, president of National Action Council
for Minorities in Engineering; Nancy Lane, director of Cambridge
University's Women in Science, Engineering and Technology program;
and Thomas Magnanti, dean of engineering at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.

Following a break, the conference will
continue at 5 p.m. with a greeting from Rita Colwell, director
of the National Science Foundation, followed by an address by
astronaut Bonnie Dunbar, assistant director for university research
and affairs at NASA. Dunbar has logged more than 50 days in space
on five flights. She joined NASA in 1978 after playing a key
role in developing the space shuttle's heat shield while employed
with Rockwell International Space Division. She has received
several NASA Space Flight Medals in addition to numerous other
awards.

On Saturday, March 31, the conference
will convene at 9 a.m. with an address, "Undergraduate Engineering
and the Role of the Liberal Arts," by Shirley Ann Jackson,
president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jackson's talk will be followed by
a response from panelists, including Susan Voss, an assistant
professor with the Picker Program, and Rose Mary Farenden, global
recruitment director at Ford Motor Company, who will discuss
possible approaches to engineering education. Stephen Director,
dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan
and chair of the Engineering Deans Council, will introduce Jackson's
lecture and serve as moderator for the response.

The conference will culminate in an
11 a.m. session, "A Conversation About the Future of Engineering
Education," with Grasso; George Peterson, executive director
of the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology; James
Wei, dean of the School of Engineering at Princeton University;
Kristina Johnson, dean of the School of Engineering at Duke University;
and Joseph Goldstein, dean of the College of Engineering at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Friday's sessions will take place in
Wright Hall Auditorium. Saturday's sessions will take place
in Sweeney Concert Hall, Sage Hall. All sessions are free, open
to the public and wheelchair accessible.

Established in February 1999, Smith
College's Picker Program in Engineering and Technology is the
first and only engineering program at a women's college. Its
focus is on developing broadly educated, well-rounded engineers
capable of assuming leadership roles in corporations, non-profit
organizations and technology-related fields. The program's unprecedented
linkage of engineering education and the liberal arts is designed
to attract women not only strong in scientific and technical
aptitude but also capable of exceptional creativity and humanistic
understanding. The first class of engineering students entered
Smith this fall and is expected to graduate in 2004. They will
earn bachelor's degrees in engineering science, enabling them
to pursue specialization in a range of technical fields.

Smith College is consistently ranked
among the nation's best liberal arts colleges. Enrolling 2,800
students from every state and 50 other countries, Smith is the
largest undergraduate women's college in the United States.